Lord Tennyson, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Southey, Beatrix Potter, Thomas Coleridge, William Wordsworth: these writers cherished the Lake District - a region dubbed by many as the most beautiful place on Earth. Unlike the shocking raw beauty of Scotland, the pastoral beauty of this land inspired a placid spiritual peace.
18 May 2010 - Today in Grasmere I visited Dove Cottage, the greenery and flowers visible outside every window. The garden behind the cottage was lovely – the lake visible between cobblestone buildings from the top of the rise that was carpeted with flowers. At two I began a hike through the path that Wordsworth himself walked more than two hundred years ago. There was an opening in the trees that looked upon a pasture dotted with sheep, twisted trees scattered in the perfect arrangement. The romantic art that I’d assumed to be exaggerations of beauty became absolutely appropriate to what I saw today.
19 May 2010 - I’m sitting on a boulder beside the lake, an icy wind that’s freezing my fingers and ears into numbness also blowing the water into choppy crests, lapping jagged, black rocks at the shore. Nature is a most direct communiqué of God, which is why if we listen to nature we just might hear Him.
These pictures are from Keswick. As my only camera was a dysfunctional SLR, I left it behind for the Grasmere hike. Keswick was certainly beautiful, but Grasmere made me want to sit in the grass dedicate my life to Lyrical Ballads!
“And from the blessed power that rolls
About, below, above,
We’ll frame the measure of our souls,
They shall be tuned to love.”
(Wm. Wordsworth)
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